Oak Parkers, tomorrow night is the deadline to apply to be appointed to the vacant library board seat. If you’ve been thinking about running for office someday, this is an opportunity to skip the ‘running’ part. 
Library board service is one evening / month, plus a few additional meetings here and there; it’s not very onerous in terms of time commitment, and in addition to serving a tremendous public good in protecting our libraries, it’s also a great place to ‘learn the ropes’ re: elected service.
As we look ahead to the fall petition season and next spring’s elections, please remember that it’s never too soon to start building a deeper bench of candidates for higher office.
And I’ll pause here and just say that there’s lots of research that shows that women don’t typically run for office unless someone asks them to, often multiple times. That’s the only reason I ended up running for library board in the first place, five years ago, because one woman asked if she could have coffee and talk about my running for office. I didn’t think I was a good candidate, but she convinced me to think about it seriously. If you’re thinking about it, even a little, talk to your neighbors, talk to your friends. Ask them if they think you’d be a good board member.
Library trustee is an unpaid position (by IL law), but they can reimburse for costs related to board service, such as travel (if, say, you live in a far corner of Oak Park and need to take Uber/Lyft to the board meetings) and childcare.
Thanks for considering it.